VICTORIA FALLS, Aug. 2 (NewsDay Live) – Zimbabwean businesses need a fundamental shift in mindset to unlock emerging growth opportunities, with years of economic instability leaving many companies psychologically trapped in survival mode, business analysts said.
Speaking at the just-ended Institute of Chartered Accountants of Zimbabwe (ICAZ) Winter School 2026, business analyst Tinashe Murapata said prolonged economic crises had created “corporate trauma” that continues to shape decision-making across the private sector.
“I use the word resilient, because that’s the way we faced the hyperinflation. There’s a corporate cleansing that needs to happen in this moment before we can actually take on the growth mentality,” Murapata said.
“Because without that, the mentality that we have is we are still stuck in a certain place, and it is just oscillating around it.”
Murapata said Zimbabwe was not short of business opportunities, but many companies struggled to identify and seize them because they remained burdened by the legacy of previous economic shocks.
“The opportunities are there. They are real. But we cannot see them because we’re still stuck, purely because of what happened to us,” he said.
“And with that trauma, it would be very difficult for us to get out of. If we solve that, maybe it is the new generation.”
The ICAZ Winter School is the institute’s flagship annual conference, bringing together chartered accountants, chief financial officers, finance executives, policymakers, regulators, academics and business leaders for technical training, policy discussions and professional development.
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Zfn Capital Zimbabwe director Rufaro Zengeni echoed Murapata’s views, saying decades of economic volatility had fostered a conservative corporate culture focused more on preserving businesses than pursuing aggressive expansion.
“I think the corporate culture is very conservative. A lot of the businesses are not actually owned or managed. And there tends to be a disconnect between the principal and the agents actually managing the businesses,” Zengeni said.
“And the sense I have is that they don’t really optimise for growth, but they optimise for the longevity of their businesses.”
He said repeated economic shocks had destroyed significant corporate value, forcing many firms to close and leaving business leaders naturally risk-averse.
“Especially given the traumatic economic history of our country where that has destroyed a lot of value and caused a lot of businesses to go under, we tend to be quite conservative,” he said.
As a result, many companies had become preoccupied with governance, compliance and business continuity at the expense of innovation and expansion.
“We do not have a very aggressive growth, goal-getting mindset in the corporate world. Especially when you compare it to the kind of attitude that you see in the informal sector where you can actually see the animal spirit,” Zengeni said.
“You can see the aggression, you can see the ambition, and you can see the tinkering and entrepreneurial flair.”
